博林布魯克的政治策略(1726-1738)

亨利・聖約翰 (Henry St. John, 1678-1751)曾是安妮女王時的大臣和平民院議員，並受封為博林布魯克子爵(Viscount Bolingbroke)，政治立場是托利派。漢諾威繼承使惠格派在議會中大獲全勝，也使他決定流亡法國，並在不久後加入1715年詹姆士派的叛亂勢力。他的流亡使他因叛國罪被褫奪公權，儘管之後他再度倒向英國政府並得以在1725年獲赦返國，他畢生都未被准許重回議會。由於兩度背叛其君主，博林布魯克在政壇上的惡名不下於小說中的「那個人(You-Know-Who)」，但他發表於反對刊物《權術報》(The Craftsman，1726年底創刊)的政治論文所高揭的理念，卻成為1730年代主要反對群體的共同綱領──他是英國史上第一位首相沃波爾(Robert Walpole)掌權時期，議會中能出現反對陣線的重要推手。身負投機政客的惡名，卻能以一套政治綱領促成跨黨派合作，使因漢諾威繼承而遭受重創的托利派與惠格派中的反對群體成為政壇的抗衡力量，從而使日後的兩黨政治得以產生。博林布魯克的例子造成昆廷・斯金納(Quentin Skinner)等史家關於政治原則與政治行動之聯繫的論辯。不同於眾史家以政治思想史的架構理解此一聯繫，本文改從政治史的觀點進行分析：著眼於博林布魯克的政治論著的內容與現實發展的互動，及其與時代脈動的關係；並回歸政治行動的「動」，不假定此聯繫為一靜態圖像，而是以動態的方式呈現。本論文的前言和第一章先指出博林布魯克返國後留下的史料的特殊性，而後將博林布魯克從1726年到1738年的政論寫作放回此期政壇、媒體和他個人的概況中，將之重新定義為他的政治行動本身，是了解其政治策略的媒介。第二章和第三章則將他提出的政治綱領分為內容本身和實用層面兩部分，以動態的方式呈現其政治綱領之表裡。第二章分析博林布魯克如何藉由重述英國憲政體制和憲政精神發展史，為不同階段的反對活動提供理論根據。第三章說明其政治綱領中自由精神和派系精神的「行為標誌」與固有議題的聯繫及其新意義，並從1734年平民院選舉和1739年補選中托利派與惠格反對派的合作概況切入，一探博林布魯克如何決定其政治綱領在政治光譜中的位置。結論則從這兩次選舉的結果，觀察博林布魯克的政治策略的「效果」及其成功原因。

關鍵字

博林布魯克；惠格派與托利派；羅賓政權；權術報；金融革命；漢諾威繼承

並列摘要

This thesis aims to investigate Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751) from a new perspective. Instead of focusing on Bolingbroke's political thought alone, the thesis not only defines his political writing as a political action but also analyzes the way he employed abstract political principles to sally out against the first British Prime Minister, Robert Walpole (1676-1745). On one hand, Bolingbroke, not allowed to return to the parliaments for life and all too often was deemed as an opportunistic politician of no principle in more than 200 years, carried a stigma no less than that of “You-Know-Who” in his time. On the other hand, his contributions to The Craftsman from 1726 to 1734 composed an elaborated platform that reversed the inferiority of the opposition after the knock-down of the Tories and transformed Tories and opposition Whigs into an effective opposition league. Since the contrast between Bolingbroke's notoriety and achievements blurs the line between a politician and a statesman, the focus of the recurrent research is constantly on whether he practiced the principles in his works or not. Different from most historians who perceive the relationship between political thought and political acts as an invariable one, in light of the nature of a political act, this paper represents it as an animation, or a series of varying images, and puts it into the context of Bolingbroke's personal need, party politics, and social transformation. The first chapter demonstrates that Bolingbroke's political writing itself was his main political act because of his defective re-enfranchisement. The second chapter elucidates the main scheme of Bolingbroke's platform and how he applied it to break out of the ideological encirclement. In addition to the inner part, the third chapter enumerates the externals of his platform, illustrates their function and contact with the old parliamentary issues, and locates Bolingbroke's platform in the political spectrum with the state of the cross-party cooperation in the general election in 1734 and in the by-election in 1739. In the conclusion part I use the outcome of these two elections to examine the effect of his political strategy and the grounds of his success.

並列關鍵字

Bolingbroke ； Whig and Tory ； Robinocracy ； The Craftsman ； financial revolution ； Hanoverian succession

參考文獻

——. Lord Bolingbroke, Contributions to the Craftsman, edited by Simon Varey. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.

——. The Freeholder's Political Catechism. London, 1733. Retrieved from Eighteenth Century Collections Online database (15 Aug. 2010). Document URL

Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. London, 1790. Retrieved from Eighteenth Century Collections Online database (14 May. 2012).

Pope, Alexander. The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, 5 vols., edited by George Sherburn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.

Swift, Jonathan. The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, 4 vols., edited by David Woolley. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1999-2007.

國際替代計量

博林布魯克的政治策略(1726-1738)

全文下載

主題瀏覽